ABSTRACT

Relying on an extremely rich data set of individuals living in Madrid in 1880 and 1905, this article explores the relationship between class, literacy and social mobility. Focusing on children, we find that the probability of being literate varied significantly according to parents’ socio-economic status. Although this social gap declined during the period under study, it was still substantial in 1905. We also show that, although the expansion of the supply of schools improved the literacy rates of children from disadvantaged backgrounds, the public effort was clearly insufficient to overcome the challenges these families faced. Lastly, matching the children existing in our sample in 1880 with their corresponding adult-selves in 1905, our analysis shows that getting literate enhanced their chances of moving up the social ladder.

摘要

本文基于1880年和1905年居住在马德里的个人的非常丰富的数据集，探讨了阶级，文化和社会流动性之间的关系。着眼于儿童，我们发现识字的可能性根据父母的社会经济地位而有很大差异。尽管在研究期间这种社会差距有所减少，但在1905年仍然很大。我们还表明，尽管学校供应的增加提高了处境不利儿童的识字率，但公共努力显然不足以克服这些家庭面临的挑战。最后，通过将1880年样本中的孩子与1905年相应的成年子女进行匹配，我们的分析表明，有识字的人增加了其上进社会阶梯的机会。